Oysters and Coffee

These petite-sized Galveston Bay oysters made a lovely breakfast. I ate them with some heavily buttered German sourdough rye toast from the HEB on Bunker Hill and a cup of Community Club coffee. A drop of lemon and a dash of Tabasco perked up the breakfast half shells nicely. Oysters and coffee taste great together.

I bought a sack of Galveston Bay oysters last week, probably my last of the season. I stop eating raw oysters when the water temperature gets above 65 F. The oysters I just bought were harvested during the last cold snap. I have to use them up quick, so I'll be eating a lot of oysters for the next couple of days. Most people associate oysters with cold beer or tart white wine--I know I used to.

While I was researching my oyster book, I asked a third generation oysterman in Grande Isle Louisiana what drink his family served with oysters. He looked at me oddly. It was a stupid question--an oysterman's family eats oysters all day long. But he patiently explained that his mom and dad drank coffee with oysters in the morning, lemonade or iced tea with oysters at midday, and beer, wine, or whatever they were drinking with the oysters they ate at suppertime.

Now I understand. When you have a big sack of oysters in your refrigerator you stop thinking of them as a cocktail snack.